Something found in the game environment that bestows a positive benefit. Powerups differ from inventory items in that their effects are usually instant, instead of the item being stored for later use. Powerups often drop from the corpses of fallen enemies, and may also be found in unlikely places and breakable objects, or the odd treasure chests.
A feature found in many games is the cycling power-up, an item that cycles between two or more different power-ups (either on its own or when you shoot it), forcing the player to decide on which one is most important to them. Depending on how fast it cycles, it also tests the player's timing. These are common in space shooters.
Common types:
- Health Recovery
- Medkit with red cross (ironically, The Red Cross doesn't like this, since the red cross is a symbol regulated by international laws with a very specific meaning; the actual first aid symbol should be a white cross on green). More recent works have started using glowing green crosses instead.
- Heart
- Healing Potion, usually a crystal vial with neon red, green or blue liquid inside.
- Wrench or gas can (in vehicle games)
- Glowing orbs of Life Energy
- Food
- Body Armor
- Enhanced Abilities
- Attack Speed Buff
- Breakable Power-Up
- Power-Up Food
- Power-Up Mount
- Transformation items
- Invincibility Power-Up
- Weapons (Typically represented by the actual gun itself, or a box, canister or emblem with a letter or numerical designation representing which gun it is)
- Ammo
- Military shipping crate
- Another gun like your current one
- Loose clips/magazines, rockets, arrows, etc
- Money
- Gold coins
- Stacks of bills
- Gems or jewelry
- Sacks marked with a dollar sign
- Gold bars, ingots, or bullion
- Floating dollar sign
- 1-Up
- Icon that reads "1UP"
- Icon or doll of the player character('s head)
- Heart (if not used for health recovery)
- Every 100 of a common item
A common trait among powerups is that you often don't need to do anything other than touch it to gain its benefit. Fly your fighter into the floating container of radioactive materials (Raptor: Call of the Shadows), send the chopper into a bomb pod (Twin Cobra), and they just get installed or deposited instantly. Usually an Acceptable Break From Reality since no-one really wants to fly out of a dogfight to spend some quality time in a hangar with a wrench installing a missile pod—and dealing with the damage from ramming it into the fuselage to catch it at mach 50. When a common powerup is used to increase the player's weapon level or something, collecting more of it after reaching maximum level often results in Scoring Points instead.
Sometimes comes with its own Power-Up Motif— usually when it's a Timed Power-Up— as well as the Standard Power-Up Pose.
Compare Status Buff, Power-Up Magnet. If the powerup isn't very useful, see Power-Up Letdown. If a level doesn't contain a powerup, it is a Drought Level of Doom. Contrast Poison Mushroom, a power-down.
Examples:
- American McGee's Alice: Power-up items include the Rage Box that turns Alice into a powerful demon, a grasshopper teapot that turns her into an agile bug-girl, and a dark looking-glass that turns her invisible.
- The Simpsons Game: The characters can turn into a variety of forms by picking up or interacting with items in the game world.
- Homer has the largest number of powerups. If he fills his hunger meter to a certain point, he can turn into the hugely fat Homerball, dash at high speeds through enemies, and bounce in place to do a Ground Pound. If he finds a helium canister, he can inhale the helium to turn into Balloon Homer and float for a short period of time. If he eats a gummi Venus de Milo, he turns into the blob-like Gummi Homer who can shoot explosive gummies. Eating a hot pepper turns him into Lava Homer, a ball of humanoid lava who can roll safely on hazardous terrain and defeat enemies by touching them.
- If Bart picks up a comic book, he turns into Bart-Man and gains the ability to grab ledges with a hookshot, climb walls, and glide.
- If Lisa picks up a saxophone, she gains the ability to stun, and later hypnotize, enemies with blasts of music.
- If Marge picks up a megaphone, she gains the ability to turn passers-by into a mob of followers by yelling at them. Picking up a police badge instead turns her into Cop Marge, whose physical attacks deal more damage.
- Shirone: The Dragon Girl: The player gets two power-up that add mechanics to the puzzles. They come in the form of small rune stones able to remotely interact with the corresponding glyph. The first stone teleports Shirone to the glyph, the other charges the glyph to activate the mechanism it is linked to.
- Super Mario Bros.: A central part of gameplay is the use of power-up items, usually obtained by hitting ? Blocks, which when touched turn Mario (or Luigi or Peach or Toad or...) into special super forms with a variety of powers and abilities. Most have the added perk of giving the player the ability to take an extra hit without dying, as being hit by an enemy while in powered-up form just reverts the player to the basic, non-powered form. The most commonly recurring types, introduced back in Super Mario Bros. 1, are the Super Mushroom, which turns Mario into Super Mario and just gives him the extra life; the Fire Flower, which turns him into Fire Mario and gives him the ability to shoot fireballs; and the Starman or Super Star, which gives temporary invincibility to enemies and hazards (but usually not to Bottomless Pits). Power-ups are mutually exclusive —picking up a new one usually "overrides" an existing one— although some, like the Starman, usually have "priority" over others as long as they're in effect.
- Later games have introduced a wide assortment of other powerups, such as as Bee Mushrooms, Drill Mushrooms, Spring Mushrooms, Ice Flowers, Cloud Flowers, Bubble Flowers, Boomerang Flowers, Super Feathers, Super Leaves, Super Acorns, and so on, each of which turns players into its own distinct super form. Later titles tend to have somewhere between six and ten distinct powerups per game.
- Yoshi is the series' traditional Power-Up Mount, but also has a number of power-ups exclusive to himself. In Super Mario World, Yoshi's Wings are a pair of feathered wings that let Yoshi fly. In Super Mario Galaxy, he can eat Blimp Fruit to turn into Balloon Yoshi and float, Bulb Berry to turn into Bulb Yoshi and release a glow that reveals otherwise invisible platforms, and Dash Peppers to turn into Dash Yoshi and run very fast.
- Völgarr the Viking: Volgarr can collect a variety of items from chests — in order, a wooden shield, a metal shield, a helmet, a flaming sword, and a powerup that makes you fling fireballs at enemies when you get hit — which act as essentially extra Hit Points or a series of Single Use Shields, with each bit of damage removing one until Volgarr is a One-Hit-Point Wonder.
